


Last Resort

by HiNerdsItsCat (HiLarpItsCat)



Series: Two Can Play At That Game [7]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Chameleon Arch (Doctor Who), Doctor Who Series 12 Spoilers, Episode AU: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Gen, Jack Harkness Needs a Hug, Jenny Smith/Harry Jones - Timeline B, Memories, Memory Alteration, Mistaken Identity, Other, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, References to S03E12-E13 The Sound of Drums/Last of the Time Lords, References to Series 10, References to Torture, Special Appearance of the Simm Master in a Flashback, Threats of Violence, implied PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-31
Updated: 2020-08-04
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25630738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HiLarpItsCat/pseuds/HiNerdsItsCat
Summary: (Timeline B)The Doctor is missing and Jack Harkness knows that it's only a matter of time before every hostile faction in the galaxy figures that out, so he begins searching for her.When he discovers a very familiar-looking person named Jenny Smith in Leeds, he is admittedly a little confused. When he discovers an equally familiar-looking person named Harry Jones living with her, Jack assumes the worst.
Relationships: Jack Harkness & The Master, The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor & Jack Harkness, Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Series: Two Can Play At That Game [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733089
Comments: 94
Kudos: 132





	1. Last Resort

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to @iamdeltas for giving me the kick in the butt I needed to actually finish this fic!

“ ...and then she took his hand and just… vanished,” Ryan explained. He was fidgeting. 

They were all fidgeting, in fact. It was one of the effects of travelling with the Doctor: the itch to constantly move from one place (or time) to another, that restlessness that never quite stopped, because to the Doctor stasis was unbearable. 

Jack Harkness knew that feeling firsthand.

He also knew the feeling of confusion and hurt when the Doctor went away without a word.

Though, in this case, Jack was pretty sure that the Doctor hadn’t just wandered off and replaced them. From what her latest companions had told him, the last time anyone saw her was when the Master jumped through a portal, brandished a weapon at Ryan and a few others, and then demanded that the Doctor go with him to a ruined city on the other side.

They really needed to find her, not just because she might be in danger, but because the second that some faction or other learned that the Doctor wasn’t around to intervene, the universe would descend into absolute chaos.

Sometimes Jack forgot how much of a fulcrum the Doctor really was: the universe’s walking, talking _(so_ much talking) referee, headmaster, and conscience. It was _easy_ to forget—which was one of the Doctor’s strengths: that a very chipper millennia-old almost-eldritch creature coincidentally happened to look like a member of one of the most harmless species in the universe.

Yaz showed him a few pictures of what the Doctor looked like now: selfies of the four of them on alien worlds, in distant parts of the past or future, and even though the Doctor’s face changed, the smile was always the same.

There was even a brief video of the Doctor trying to explain the history of the golden canals of Hydria Nishil, balancing precariously on an observation platform designed for the diminutive stature of the Nishili, before she got too excited and fell into the water below while the three humans snickered off-camera.

“I’ll find her,” Jack promised them. “I can get access to information from all sorts of places.” He tapped the device on his wrist. “I’ve even got my vortex manipulator working again, which should get me most places a TARDIS would go…” He sighed. “...at least in space. The time travel function broke, unfortunately: it can only go about five years in either direction.”

“Can we come with you?” Yaz asked.

Jack hesitated. He liked all three of them ever since he accidentally scooped them up onto his stolen ship while the Doctor was busy avoiding some overzealous Judoon in Gloucester, and admittedly the idea of showing a bunch of fellow humans around the universe was pretty appealing, but it was a bit _too_ much like the Doctor’s M.O. for him to be entirely comfortable with it. As his history with Torchwood demonstrated in truly devastating ways, Jack’s leadership resulted in nothing but death and sorrow.

“Sorry,” he lied, “the vortex manipulator can only take one person. Besides, she may come back to Sheffield to find you, so you should wait for her here.”

After another five or ten minutes of arguing with them, Jack finally asked the question he had been dreading the most: “What can you tell me about the Master?”

They told him about the incident with the Kasaavin and how the Master had nearly killed them all several times, how he chased the Doctor through Earth’s history, how they spent all that time with him back when they thought he was the MI6 agent named O, and how, when he revealed his true identity, his entire demeanor changed like a switch being thrown.

“He went from shy to… well, to something kind of feral, in an instant,” Yaz concluded with a shudder.

“It was more creepy than frightening,” Ryan added.

“Can you describe what he looks like?” Jack asked.

“I’ve got a picture of him,” Yaz said, taking out her phone again. “It was right before we went to Daniel Barton’s party: we were all dressed up so I wanted to get a few photos.”

There he was, standing outside the TARDIS with the Doctor, Graham, and Ryan (Yaz was the one taking the picture): a young man around the same height as the Doctor, with black hair, brown skin, and an eager expression on his face that implied it was the very first time he had ever worn a tuxedo.

He looked… earnest. Sincere. _Nice._

But so had Harold Saxon.

It had been over a decade (in Earth years, at least; with the amount of travelling Jack had done since then, it was probably closer to fifteen or twenty for him) since Jack had been face to face with the Master, and even a single thought of that monster made his blood turn to ice. 

_A year. He tortured me for a year. Killed me over and over for a whole year._

Even if that year had been undone when Jack destroyed the paradox machine, those events still happened to _him._

* * *

In a testament to how truly bizarre his life was, this wasn’t the only time that Jack’s inability to die (for very long, at least) had been exploited as a means of hurting him—he once spent almost two millennia buried alive, after all—but something about the way the Master did it was so much worse. It was intentional without being meaningful: as if he was getting revenge for something, but there wasn’t anything that Jack had _done._

It took almost two months of torture on the _Valiant_ before Jack realised that the Master _was_ getting revenge on someone: the Doctor. 

“It’s a shame you’re so pretty,” the Master once hissed at him. “He must have loved looking at you. He loves pretty things—he’s vainer than you know.” He snorted in amusement. “Though of course you _wouldn’t_ know, would you? You don’t know him. Nobody does.” His grin was a rictus of insanity. “Except for me. I know him better than anyone, alive or dead.

“Speaking of ‘alive or dead,’ though,” he continued, rattling Jack’s chains idly, “it’s too bad you’ve got that sticky case of immortality. Pathetic Time Agent or not, you haven’t got the ability to see time the way the Doctor and I do. To us, you’re just a screaming wound in time. Wrong. _Obscene._ Looking at you is the equivalent of getting an unsolicited picture of someone’s diseased genitals.” He giggled. “And what a _prude_ the Doctor can be sometimes. He must blush and avert his eyes whenever you’re around. It must be agony for you.” His gaze darkened into something almost beastial. “I know it is for me. His attention just _burns,_ doesn’t it? And when it’s gone, you’re left out in the cold. But not anymore, not for me. I’ve got all the Doctor’s attention now.”

“Because he despises you,” Jack snapped.

He laughed in reply. “Hate can be far more delicious than affection. Maybe you’ll learn that someday… but probably not, since you’ll be spending the rest of your disgusting eternity chained up here. A sickening fixed point in time, enough to make even the noble Doctor nauseous. Well, I’ll do him a favour: he’ll never have to look at you again.”

And then the Master strangled him to death.

* * *

Jack learned later that the Doctor had sobbed when Lucy Saxon shot her “husband.” That the Master had died in his arms while the Doctor pleaded with him to regenerate. That when the Doctor had taken control of the Archangel Network and finally put an end to the horrors that the Master had unleashed on the Earth… he told the Master that he _forgave_ him.

 _(“I’ve got all the Doctor’s attention now,”_ the Master had bragged.)

The Doctor might be able to forgive him, but Jack could not. 

Jack wasn’t as good a person as the Doctor was. He probably never would be.

Which was why he made sure to bring his gun.

* * *

Nothing. Access to some of the best intergalactic search engines available, and there was no sign of the Doctor. Whatever “boundary” Ryan had travelled to with the Doctor was no longer there. It was just some old shacks on the seashore.

Jack was running out of leads, which was what brought him back to Earth. 

“There was this other bloke,” Ryan had told him, “who called himself the Doctor too.”

“Another regeneration,” Jack assumed. 

“He’s the one who rescued us from the Cybermen invasion in the future—”

(Something that still made Jack’s stomach twist.)

_(The Lone Cyberman… I tried to warn her…)_

“—he told us that the Doctor was fine and would be coming back for us… but that was six months ago.”

“But he would have said something if she was in danger,” Yaz reasoned. 

“Do you know where the Doctor— _that_ Doctor—was going? Or where he came from?” Jack asked.

The other three shared a look. “He had this really creepy woman with him in the TARDIS,” Graham explained. “She said something about a university… St Luke’s.”

“We figured out that it was in Bristol,” Yaz added, “but when we got there they said he hadn’t been there for over two years.”

It was the only lead that Jack had left, so he headed to Bristol to see if the Doctor had left anything behind at St Luke’s University.

Unfortunately, his arrival in 2018 finally shorted out the time travel capabilities of his vortex manipulator for good… but he comforted himself with the knowledge that once he found the Doctor (and any version would do at this point), it would be easy to repair.

After far too long trying to persuade a secretary (who was indifferent to his charms) to give him the location of the Doctor’s office, Jack headed down the hallway… and froze.

Stacked in a neat pile on the table outside the department office were several copies of an alumni magazine, with a cover feature on the recent appointment of someone named Dr Jenny Smith to the Royal Society.

The picture on the cover was of a face that Jack now knew very well.

* * *

Jack had assumed that finding someone with a name as common as “Jenny Smith” would be a challenge, but it turned out to not be difficult at all. Hell, all it took was a Google search and he found her web page at the University of Leeds:

_“Dr Jenny Smith is a senior lecturer at the University of Leeds, where she has been a member of the faculty since October 2017. A globally-recognised expert in the fields of biophysics, molecular engineering, and quantum physics, Dr Smith has been honoured by several of the world’s most prestigious scientific organisations and is a governing member of the Royal Society of Biology, the International Academy of Quantum Molecular Science, and the Academy of Medical Sciences; she was appointed a Fellow of the Royal Society in September 2018. She received her doctoral degree from St Luke’s University.”_

Had she been on Earth this entire time? Since _2017?_

And why was she posing as a human, especially one that seemed relatively notable?

It was the last line, however, that made Jack _extremely_ confused: _“Dr Smith resides in Leeds with her family.”_

Her _family?_

Jack dug through search results, mostly regarding “Dr Smith’s” work and research (the majority of which went over his head), until he found something even _weirder:_ a Facebook group called ‘Smith-Jones Argument Survivors.’ 

Its description read: _“A support group for any St Luke’s students unfortunate enough to have been caught in the crossfire of a screaming match between Jenny Smith and Harry Jones. Bonus points if you witnessed hair-pulling or other acts of mayhem.”_

The group was a few years old—apparently “Jenny” had left Bristol in the spring of 2017—but until that time it was _full_ of posts from students bemoaning and/or laughing at what seemed like a constant battle between two very annoying students.

The most recent post was from January 2018:

_Big news incoming, so hang onto your hats. My mate went home to Leeds over the hols and saw them. Now, I know what you’re going to say: that’s not news since we all know Smith moved there at the end of spring term and Jones either followed her there to get the last word in or she murdered him and hid the body really well._

_No, here’s the big news: it finally FINALLY fucking happened. Arm in arm, snogging in public, the most sickeningly sweet bollocks you could imagine._

_Not that it prevented them from screaming bloody murder at one another when they got into some fight over what my friend thinks might have been something about the food supply in Kent—so, the usual._

_Anyway, congrats to the folks who won the bet and let’s all raise a glass in celebration of them being in another part of the damn country where we won’t have to listen to them ever again._

The comments section confirmed the existence of an actual betting pool over the outcome of this couple’s relationship (Jack didn’t know whether to laugh or groan at the “snogging” part). 

One of the comments, however, demanded proof: _“pics or it didn’t happen”._

The reply made Jack’s chest tighten so suddenly that he almost couldn’t breathe.

The picture wasn’t the best resolution, but his face was unmistakable. Not just his, but the Doctor’s as well: the two of them walking down a city street hand in hand, talking animatedly to one another, with a look on the Doctor's face that… 

_“…arm in arm, snogging in public…”_

Harry Jones was the Master.

And he had captured the Doctor.


	2. Middle of the Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: this chapter contains threats of gun violence.

At this precise moment, Harry’s entire world consisted of two things: the man standing over him and the gun that he was pointing at Harry’s head.

He tried to think about something else—for example, a solution—but it was inevitably overshadowed by the increasingly resigned horror that he was probably about to be murdered in his own living room by an angry American in a World War Two-era coat.

(Make that _three_ things: every single news story Harry had ever read where an American with a gun got upset with someone who shared the colour of Harry’s skin.)

“If you want money,” Harry said, trying to look anywhere but at the gun or the American’s face and failing, “my wallet’s on the table in the hall. Not much in the way of cash, but you could probably get some use out of the bank cards.”

But the American just laughed incredulously. “You thought you could hide, didn’t you?” he asked. “New face, new time period… but you couldn’t resist keeping the name Harry. You’re so predictable: you can’t help bragging and you can’t help making enemies.” One side of his mouth twitched into something like a smile. “Like those kids in Sheffield who showed me your picture. Remember them? Or does it all blur together after a while?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Harry was trying so hard to stay calm but his voice was shaking and a fourth thing entered his world, which was the presence of Suzi asleep upstairs. He had put her down to sleep only an hour ago, and she was finally sleeping more than a couple hours at a time, but the sound of a gunshot would definitely wake her up and then—although, maybe Jenny (fifth thing) would arrive home and see what was going on and find a way to get herself and Suzi away and—

_As if she’d ever leave you behind…_

Harry almost laughed out loud at the idea of his wife doing anything but the most impulsive and dangerous thing possible, which meant that if he was still alive when she returned from her lab at the University, she would immediately try to bash the American over the head with a poker (not that they owned one) and then they’d probably both die.

“What do you want?” he decided to ask. A sixth thing crept into his awareness, which was the growing discomfort in his knees from kneeling on the floor.

“Tell me where the Doctor is,” the American said.

“The _Doctor?”_

Oh, that was the wrong response: the American moved the gun a little closer to Harry’s face. “Yes, the _Doctor.”_

“I haven’t seen the Doctor in almost a year. The last I heard, he was in Bristol.” He wasn’t there anymore—Jenny had confirmed that when she was in town for a guest lecture in June—but it wasn’t like the American knew that.

Or so he thought. “Not _that_ Doctor,” the American said grimly, “the next one. I know she’s with you, I know you did something to her—” 

“That’s the only version of the Doctor I know!” Harry cried.

“Bullshit,” the American said, almost pleasantly. “She’s been living with you for years—did you think I wouldn’t know?” His face twisted in disgust. “Keeping her like that—that low even for you.”

Harry lost track of how many things he was able to think about as he realised what the American was implying: he thought that Jenny was the Doctor.

And that Harry had— 

_Oh no._

The American’s voice grew quieter. “You know, that year we were on the _Valiant…_ all of the times you stabbed me, strangled me, shot me… I remember every single moment of it.”

“Who do you think I am?” Harry asked hesitantly.

(Something about this… about the _Valiant…_ it was familiar… had he heard about it on the news?)

“Exactly what you are: a monster. The Doctor might have been able to forgive you for that year… but I can’t.”

Harry shut his eyes. A crystalline tide was crashing against the shores of his mind, but he couldn’t put a name to its source. His heart was thundering in a double rhythm, as though it was trying to get in as many beats as possible before he died, heating his blood to a boil… 

_If I’m about to die anyway, I might as well go down fighting,_ he thought, and prepared himself to lunge at his killer—

_(Tear his throat out—)_

There was a loud bang: not the sound of a gun going off, but the sound of a heavy object hitting an adult human.

He opened his eyes to find Jenny wielding a coat rack in both hands, and a stunned American sprawled on the floor.

Harry scrambled for the gun and yanked it out of the American’s hand. 

Jenny looked like she wanted to continue introducing him to the handful of jackets that were still hanging from her improvised weapon, but addressed Harry instead: “Are you all right?”

“Terrified,” he admitted as he got to his feet, “but otherwise unharmed.”

She breathed a sigh of relief, and then her expression hardened as she regarded the third person in the room. “I’ll make you a deal,” she said in a voice harder than iron. “If you get up and leave right now, I’ll let you depart unharmed. I won’t come after you. I won’t call the police.” Her grip tightened on the coat rack. “But this is your _one_ chance.”

The American rolled onto his back and looked up at Jenny. “Doctor?” he asked her.

“He thinks you’re the Doctor,” Harry explained in response to Jenny’s confused reaction.

For a moment, there was a strange look in his wife’s eyes, but then she shook her head as though trying to clear her thoughts. “My offer’s not going to last forever,” she reminded the American.

The American sat up, but was prevented from moving any closer to her by the coat rack in his face. “Doctor,” he said urgently, “it’s Jack… Jack Harkness. I know you don’t remember me, but I need you to trust me. That man is not who he says he is. He’s been keeping you prisoner, he wiped your memory and convinced you—”

“Stop!” Jenny snapped.

“—that he’s your husband but he’s not,” Jack continued. “He’s someone called the Master and he’s responsible for billions of deaths. I can help you get your memory back and then we can stop him—”

“Stop it!” she said again. “Stop talking. _Now.”_ She squeezed her eyes shut with a grimace.

“I think you’ve gotten confused,” Harry told him. “We both _travelled_ with the Doctor, that’s all.” 

“Where’s the fob watch?” Jack demanded. He was still looking at Jenny. “Come on, you must have one: a watch that you’ve never opened, that you barely even think about but can’t bring yourself to throw away.”

An odd memory surfaced in Harry’s mind of a necklace that Jenny wore back when they first met: a small locket in the shape of a clock. 

Jenny’s eyes were still closed. “Stop it,” she whispered over and over. 

Watching her distress, Harry felt his fingers tighten on the gun and experienced, for the briefest of moments, the overwhelming urge to make that man stop talking forever.

_(“She’ll never have to look at you again…”)_

But the moment passed, and Harry set the weapon down on a table on the other end of the room with a shudder.

“You know that I’m right,” Jack insisted, his voice growing hopeful. “Deep down, you know something’s wrong here.”

“Jenny?” Harry asked tentatively. While nowhere near as afraid as he had been earlier, he could sense the growing pit of horror in his stomach as he felt something entirely unexpected:

Doubt.

It was ridiculous: the Doctor was a grumpy old man with a Scottish accent. Yes, Harry had learned that his species could apparently regenerate into different forms—different people, really—but he _knew_ Jenny. She wasn’t anything like the Doctor. She couldn’t be the same person— 

_But what if she was?_

It was impossible, but Harry’s unease was growing… 

Because he was finding it increasingly difficult to remember why he and Jenny had stopped travelling with the Doctor.

Because of all the strange looks that Missy, the Doctor’s prisoner/friend(/girlfriend?), gave Jenny any time she did something particularly clever.

Because he knew nothing about Jenny’s past before they met at St Luke’s University.

Come to think of it, Harry didn’t recall much about his _own_ past.

And if this possibly-not-delusional American had mistaken Harry for someone else…

Before Harry could finish that horrible thought, Jenny spoke up: “Let’s go in the garden,” she told Jack.

Jack grinned, which was more than enough to set Harry on edge. “Are you going to be alright?” Harry asked her.

Jenny smiled weakly. “If you need to rescue me, you’ve got a few options at your disposal.” She indicated the gun on the table and the coat rack she set down.

For a moment, all Harry wanted to say was “Please come back,” but he wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t afraid for her safety, despite the American’s advantage in height and build, but of something much more existential.

_Would she ever leave me behind?_

“I love you,” he blurted out.

“I love you too,” Jenny said.

Harry tried to ignore the strange note in her voice as she led Jack towards the back door.


	3. Early Days

The Master was a talented liar—Jack almost believed him when he feigned ignorance of what was going on—but he had never beaten the Doctor for long. Of course she would be able to figure it out, even with all the mental manipulation that had been inflicted on her.

“Doctor,” Jack said once he could be certain that they were out of earshot. “I—”

“Shush,” she said, moving through the back garden like she was in a trance. “There’s something in the garden,” she murmured absently. “Something waiting.”

Jack didn’t have much experience with the effects of a Chameleon Arch, but he figured that it was probably best to stay out of the Doctor’s way while she located the watch that housed her real memories.

Eventually, she wandered over to a small shed at the back of the garden, one that Jack hadn’t even realised was there. “Right where I left it,” she said, sounding relieved.

“What is it?”

She turned in surprise, as though she had forgotten Jack was there. “Stay here,” she ordered him.

As she opened the door, Jack caught sight of a familiar shade of blue.

Less than thirty seconds later, someone very different exited the shed. She had the same outward appearance, but everything about her seemed almost larger than life.

The Doctor was back.

And she was _furious._

_She’s not likely to forgive him this time, I bet._

But that fury, Jack realised a second too late, was directed at _him._

“What have you done?” she demanded angrily.

“You’re welcome,” Jack said, feeling a little offended. “I just saved you from imprisonment by your worst enemy.”

“Imprisonme—did it ever occur to you that I _chose_ to be here?”

Jack almost laughed. “With the _Master?”_ he asked incredulously. 

“Yes!” She still looked extremely upset. “And we _both_ used the Chameleon Arch, so the person you nearly scared to death in there was a human named Harry Jones who gets slightly squeamish around spiders. How heroic do you feel now?”

 _Oh shit._ That possibility hadn’t occurred to Jack. He had assumed that the Master would have stayed a Time Lord so that he could enjoy his victory over his nemesis.

_Why would he make himself that vulnerable?_

“Why did you change into humans?”

Her expression was stony. “None of your business.”

He nearly growled in frustration. “Well, how long are you going to be like this?”

“Forever.”

 _“Excuse_ me?” He must have misheard her. “Are you joking?”

“Deadly serious. I’m done being the Doctor.”

Jack didn’t know whether to be horrified or angry. “You can’t just quit!” he sputtered.

Her reply was almost cheerful: “Yes I can. This is me: quitting.”

“The universe _needs_ you!”

“The universe has gotten enough from me!” she snapped. “I’ve spent longer than you will _ever_ know trying to put out one fire after another and I’m _tired!_ I’ve never belonged to myself—ever! It’s not noble and it’s not heroic, but I’ve never been either of those things anyway, so here’s the truth: I’ve done enough and now I want to rest. I think I’ve earned it.”

Jack felt his lip curl into a sneer. “Well, when the Earth gets invaded by Cybermen or the Daleks blow up a star system, I hope you’re happy sitting on the sidelines.”

“Too bad,” she shot back. “I’m not leaving.”

“You can’t do this!”

“A shame you don’t still have your _gun,”_ she spat. “You could have just marched me into the TARDIS and _made_ me go back to being your personal saviour.”

“This is not about me!” Jack shouted, though part of him did feel a bit ashamed for barging in with a weapon and threatening a stranger with it. “This is about the billions of people who depend on you!”

She snorted in derision. “You want someone to be the Doctor so badly, _you_ do it. I’ll even tell you where the Master’s TARDIS is. You can take that one. Save the day yourself.”

 _Maybe I_ _should_ _abduct her, if that’s the only way she’ll see sense._ “You think that’s all it takes? A time machine? It’s not about the box, it’s about the person inside it! You’ve never needed a TARDIS to win!”

“Yes! And it was exhausting!” Her hands were balled up in fists at her side, and even though he was at least a head taller than her, the Doctor was somehow shouting in his face. “It chipped away at me, day after day, and it was never going to stop! Ever! That’s why I chose to stay here: so I wouldn’t have to keep living on and on and _on—_ I’m sick of it!”

“Did you remember that you’re talking to the guy who _can’t die?”_ he reminded her.

Rather than looking guilty, she just looked irritated. “When you hit several billion years old, then you can lodge a formal complaint.”

“You’re not _that_ old,” Jack scoffed, but then noticed the hurt in her eyes. “You’re not, are you?”

The Doctor looked light-years away. “Older than the entire Time Lord civilisation, it turns out. I think that’s old enough to retire, don’t you?”

Behind the anger, Jack saw something he hadn’t seen in the Doctor’s former regenerations: a new kind of pain and betrayal. “What happened?” he asked hesitantly.

For a moment, she trembled ever-so-slightly. “Someone lied to me… a lot of someones, actually.”

He knew he was missing a crucial part of the story, but Jack still couldn’t let her get away with such an utterly _stupid_ decision. “Is that why you’re giving up?”

Her attention was back on him. “I said it’s none of your business!”

“You’ve got two sweet kids and a silver fox up in Sheffield who think you’re either being tortured or _dead!”_ he snarled. “Did you forget about them? You didn’t even say goodbye!”

“It was better that way!” she protested.

“It was cowardice!” he shouted. “It was _selfishness!”_

“I tried to tell them!” The Doctor’s voice cracked slightly. “I had the paper and the pen in my hand: I was going to write them a note, tell them not to come looking for me… but I didn’t know how to start. I didn’t know what to say, and then the Master finished programming the Arch and there wasn’t time—”

Even hearing the name was enough to send Jack back into a rage. “How could you possibly trust him?” he demanded. “How could you have forgiven him for everything he’s done—to you, to the Earth, to _me—”_

“I haven’t,” she insisted.

“What about on the _Valiant?_ Everything he did that year and you said you _forgave_ him—”

“He’s done so much worse than that. So much worse than you’ll ever know.”

He scoffed. “So that makes it, what, all water under the bridge? What’s a little torture and mass slaughter between friends?” He noticed her flinch and it finally hit him. “Oh god… that’s what happened, isn’t it? You reconciled. You’re friends again? Lovers?”

“Not exactly. We…” She shifted uncomfortably. “…we pretended to be something we weren’t, but then the lie got too big to escape. Harry and Jenny became too real to ignore… and they won.”

“Won?”

The Doctor gestured at herself and then the house. “Us. This. They got all of it. They got to have a life.”

Jack felt a twinge of sympathy, because she wasn’t wrong about having given so much of herself to save the universe that she deserved a rest—but it was a happy ending that the Master definitely did _not_ deserve.

And if depriving him of that meant making the Doctor a little unhappy in the process, so be it.

Which is why Jack said dismissively: “So what? It’s a house and a costume. It’s just a dream you had, and now you’re awake. Why does it matter?”

The Doctor glanced down at the vortex manipulator on his wrist. “Is that how you got here?” she asked. Jack couldn’t interpret her tone, so he nodded warily.

But he should have been even more cautious: before he could yank his arm out of range, the Doctor jammed her sonic screwdriver against it, made some kind of alteration, and then activated it.

After the flash of light had cleared from Jack’s vision, he found himself inside a bedroom.

There was a crib near the window.

Next to him, he could barely make out the Doctor’s expression in the dark. 

Jack took a tentative step and looked down at the crib’s occupant. 

The sleeping infant was a few months old, with wisps of dark hair covering the crown of its head. 

“She’s named after my granddaughter,” the Doctor said quietly. “Susan. Well, ‘named after’—Jenny and Harry don’t know that, they just thought it was a nice name.”

“She’s yours?” He felt frozen in place, watching this surreal combination of familiar features.

“Theirs,” the Doctor corrected him. “One hundred percent human.”

Jack’s heart sank in his chest, just a little. “This is why you can’t leave.”

She continued as though she hadn’t heard him: “It's funny, you know: when I came to Earth for the very first time with Susan, I considered doing something like this. Not the Arch, but I thought it might be nice to just… stay. Pretend to be human for as long as I could. I’m sure you’re not surprised to hear that I didn’t exactly fit in on Gallifrey—” Her voice hitched slightly. “But I always felt like I fit in here on Earth. It wasn’t home, but I thought it might be one day, if I stayed long enough.”

“But you left,” Jack pointed out.

“Susan was still so young at the time: she let our secret slip to her teachers and the whole thing sort of spiraled out of control after that.” She laughed quietly. “That was when we started travelling with humans, by the way. I thought that it would be the perfect compromise: I still felt like I fit in and I still got to explore and see new things.”

“So what happened?”

“I ran out of new things.” Her voice grew suddenly cold. “But, more than that, I didn’t have a home anymore… at a time when I needed one so badly.”

“I heard rumours that Gallifrey was back.” Maybe she didn’t know, Jack wondered. Maybe that would be enough to convince her to reconsider.

The Doctor’s expression revealed nothing. “There’s more to the story,” she said carefully, “but it doesn’t matter. It’s not my home anymore.”

“But _this_ is? Leeds? 21st century?”

She shook her head. “Jenny Smith. She’s my home. And this is _her_ home.”

“And what about ‘Harry Jones’?” Jack asked bitterly. “How do you know the Master won’t just tear it all down for fun?”

“He won’t.”

"What, did he promise you nicely?"

“Not exactly. But _they_ promised—Harry and Jenny—and I trust them to keep that promise.” She took Jack gently by the arm. “Come on, before we wake her up—” She activated his vortex manipulator again and, in a flash, they were back outside.

The truth pressed down on Jack like a slab of iron: _She’s really not coming back._

“What happens now?” he asked desperately. “What happens when there isn’t a Doctor anymore?”

“The universe moves on.” She sighed. “Maybe think about it this way instead: who’s one of the greatest threats to the Earth?”

He realised what she was getting at. “The Master.”

“Well, the Doctor sacrificed herself to keep him from ever coming back. He’ll never hurt anyone again.” She smiled faintly. “How’s that for a heroic ending?”

“Is that what I should tell the kids up in Sheffield?”

Her smile vanished. “You don’t tell them anything,” she said fiercely. “You don’t tell _anyone._ If word gets out—and it _will_ get out—we’ll have half the threats in the universe on our doorstep.” She pointed back at the house. “On _their_ doorstep.”

Jack shivered. Yes, _there_ was the terrifying alien masquerading as an ordinary fool. _There_ was the Oncoming Storm.

He nodded wordlessly.

The Doctor took a deep breath. “Give me the vortex manipulator,” she ordered him.

Sighing, Jack handed it over. It wasn’t like his day could get any worse: he might as well get stranded in Yorkshire in 2018 on top of everything else.

But all she did was make a few more adjustments with the sonic screwdriver.

“There you go,” she said, sounding a little more cheerful as she gave it back to him. “All of time and space, waiting for you. And if there’s trouble out there…” Her eyes sparkled in mild amusement. “I think an ex-Time Agent would be an ideal candidate to handle that sort of thing, especially if he had a few people to help.”

Jack flinched. “I tried that before. It didn’t work.”

“So do better next time. You’ve got time to learn. I bet Yaz, Ryan, and Graham could give you some tips.”

He tried not to think about the tragedies that had occurred when he was with Torchwood. “I’ll think about it,” he said at last.

“It’s a big decision,” she conceded. “I meant it when I offered you a TARDIS, incidentally.”

Jack laughed ruefully. “I’m not sure I’m up to piloting one.”

“You did it once,” she pointed out.

“With five other people.”

She gave him a genuine grin. “So get recruiting.”

He wanted to plead with her to come with him again… but decided to end things on a more conciliatory note: “Tell Harry I’m sorry.”

The Doctor nodded. “Take care of yourself, Jack.”

He spread his arms wide and forced himself to smile. “Can’t die, remember?”

“Not just physically,” she corrected him. “A broken heart’s harder to heal than a broken neck.”

Well, he certainly felt heartbroken at the moment. 

_A universe without the Doctor…_

“Goodbye, Doctor,” Jack said, putting in the coordinates for two years in the future and fifty kilometers south.

“Goodbye, Jack Harkness,” she replied, then turned and headed back into the house.


	4. First Priority

After checking on Suzi (still fast asleep, her fingers curling and uncurling as though trying to grab something), there was little else Harry could do except wait for Jenny to return. 

_Would she ever leave me behind?_

He peeked out the back window and wasn’t entirely surprised that the garden was empty, though he was a little perplexed that the door to their garden shed was slightly ajar. There wasn’t anything interesting in there.

After another few minutes of pacing in the living room, his worry and impatience finally reached the point where he was ready to go looking for her—but then the back door opened and only one person came through it.

It wasn’t Jack.

But it wasn’t Jenny either.

Harry knew that: he knew it the way that he knew how many fingers he had, or how he knew that he was about to drop something, or how he knew when he was safe at home.

“He’s gone,” the person with Jenny’s face told him. “I made it very clear that he wasn’t to come back, or to tell anyone else about us.”

“Us?” To his surprise, Harry started laughing.

She blinked in surprise. “What’s funny?”

“The last time we talked, you were Scottish.” He shook his head, still snickering in disbelief. “It’s very weird thinking of you as the same person… though I guess there’s still something very… Doctor-y about you.”

“You might find it easier than I do,” the Doctor admitted, looking a little embarrassed. “I mostly think of him as a separate person, one who just happens to share my memories.”

“But what is anyone except a bunch of memories?” Harry pointed out, feeling like he was quoting someone. He thought back to his doubts from earlier, the suspicions he had about himself, and steeled himself for the next question: “Does that mean I’m…?”

The Doctor sighed. “Yes.”

“And that’s why Jack…”

“Yes. I explained. He understands.” She took a deep breath, and Harry noticed how she couldn’t bring herself to look at him. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, and turned to head back outside.

“Where are you going?”

“The TARDIS. There are a few things I have to take care of.”

And there it was: the fear that had been pressing down on him ever since Jenny left through that same door.

_She’s really not coming back._

“Any ideas for what I should say?” Harry asked, feeling like his ribcage was tightening around his lungs and heart.

“What?” the Doctor asked, startled.

Of course she hadn’t thought about the implications. That wasn’t the Doctor’s style. “I can make something up,” he said stiffly. “You ran off with a handsome American, maybe… but I suppose I’d want Suzi to think of you fondly. I’ll figure it out; it’ll be a few days before anyone else realises that you’ve gone. If you have any suggestions—”

“What are you _talking_ about?” The Doctor was now giving him her full attention, and Harry tried so hard to ignore the way that her nose was scronched up in just the same way Jenny’s did when she was confused. 

That resemblance in itself was almost enough to bring him to tears. “It’s all right. I mean, it’s not all right exactly, but it would be silly of me to demand that you stay. This isn’t your life, you don’t owe me.”

“You’re upset. Why are you upset?”

“Because she didn’t get a chance to say goodbye!” He took a shaky breath. “I know that the situation was desperate and that there wasn’t time but I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye to my _wife_ and now she’s gone!”

For some reason, the Doctor looked genuinely startled. “Wait, you think I’m _leaving_ you here?”

He looked at her, appalled. “I can’t go _with_ you! Suzi’s here—and _no,_ before you suggest it, we’re not taking a _three-month-old_ on a jaunt through space and time!”

Her eyes widened. “Harry—”

He couldn’t help it: the sound of his name in a voice that was Jenny’s but not Jenny’s at all hurt so badly that he could only half-stifle the sob.

Now the Doctor _really_ looked alarmed. “Harry,” she said again, “I’m going back to the TARDIS so that I can use the Arch again.”

He froze. “Really?”

“Yes! So _please_ stop doing that thing with your face.”

That eased most of the pain in his heart, but not all of it. “What happens the next time someone comes looking for you?”

“They won’t.”

“Yes, they will. Of _course_ they will. You’re the Doctor.” Harry sighed sadly. “And one day, the universe is going to need the Doctor more than I need Jenny Smith.”

“Never going to happen,” she said fiercely. “She will _always_ come back. I promise.”

He wanted to believe her. But he also knew how much the Doctor lied, both to other people and to herself. He shook his head.

Suddenly, she lunged forward, grabbed him by the wrist, and pulled him after her as she marched towards the garden shed where the TARDIS was waiting.

“I told you, I can’t just leave Suzi here!” he protested.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be right back!” the Doctor exclaimed cheerfully.

“You _say_ that, but when was the last time a TARDIS trip ever went as planned?”

“We’re not going far,” she assured him, shutting the TARDIS door behind them. 

The interior was different from how Harry remembered it. “You redecorated,” he said.

The Doctor beamed. “Do you like it?”

_Not really,_ he almost replied, but instead asked “Where are we going?”

“Not where,” she said, pressing a few switches on the console. _“When.”_

The old metallic rasping of the Doctor’s ship brought back an onslaught of memories… some of which were not Harry’s own. 

(A desperate plea: _“Everything’s changed! It’s only the two of us! We’re the only ones left! Just let me in!”)_

(The mocking reply: _“Why don’t we stop and have a nice little chat while I tell you all my plans and you can work out a way to stop me?”)_

He shivered.

“Here we are!” the Doctor proclaimed. “We didn’t even leave the garden.” She opened the door, then opened the door to the shed part way and put a finger to her lips. “We’ll need to stay quiet, though.”

“I’m not sure how we could be louder than the TARDIS arriving,” Harry pointed out.

“Don’t worry, the shed is soundproofed.”

“Then why do we have to—”

“Shush,” she hissed.

The garden looked roughly the same: a few things were overgrown and a few more things were trimmed back, the railing on the back steps had received a fresh coat of paint, and there were one or two items in the grass that Harry realised were children’s toys.

“What year is this?” he whispered.

“2028. Ten years in the future.”

Harry frowned as something occurred to him. “Does this mean there are two TARDISes in here?”

The Doctor shrugged. “The shed is bigger on the inside. We just parked in front of the other one.”

“Strange that we never thought to come in here,” Harry mused. If someone had asked him earlier in the day, he would have forgotten about the shed’s existence entirely.

“Perception filter,” the Doctor replied with a smirk. “It took half a dozen TARDIS keys to put together one strong enough to work on the two of you. And, even then—”

The Time Lord was interrupted by a high pitched, and rather annoyed, voice: “No, _like this:_ two claps, then tap-tap-tap—”

“I _was_ doing the taps!” another voice replied indignantly.

Two children: a girl and a boy, just out of Harry’s sight but likely sitting at the small table near the back steps, tucked away under the shade of the tree.

He could feel his heart pounding as the implications hit him like a blow to the chest.

“You were doing _four_ taps, not _three,”_ the girl insisted. “Watch me—”

“I _was_ watching!”

“Well, watch _better_ this time!”

Harry nearly left the shed so that he could have a look at them, but the Doctor caught him by the sleeve. “Wait, there’s more,” she said.

And there was: the back door opened and he saw the person he loved best.

“Everything all right out here?” Jenny asked.

“Yes,” said the girl.

“No,” the boy countered stubbornly.

“Why?” the girl asked, ignoring him.

“Just thought I heard something,” Jenny said, then laughed. “Still teaching him the cup game, then?”

“It’s not as good with two people,” Suzi (because who else would it be?) complained. “Can you play with us?”

“I’ve got to leave for a lecture soon,” Jenny apologised. “But I’ll see if your dad can join you, okay?”

As their children _(two_ of them???) offered their respective opinions on her proposal, Harry noticed that she looked older. Not by much, only a few years, but enough to confirm that time had passed.

This was the future, and she was still there. They both were.

“You might not trust me to keep my promise,” the Doctor said quietly, “but trust that she’ll keep hers.”

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“We should head back,” she said. “Never a good thing to know too much about your own future.”

Harry wanted to linger just a little more, but silently conceded that she had a point. He followed her back into the TARDIS.

In a handful of moments, they returned to 2018.

“What happens now?” he asked.

“It’ll take me a few minutes to set up the Arch,” the Doctor explained, then winced. “The process is far from painless… and I don’t think you want to see that. Wait outside, but don’t go too far: she’s going to be exhausted and a little disoriented.”

“Will she remember?”

“Not really. It’ll be a bit hazy at first, and then fade away. Are you going to tell her?”

“I think so.” But something else was troubling Harry now. “Will this happen to me?” he asked. “Will he ever come back?”

“It’s possible,” the Doctor admitted. “We put in failsafes, in case things got… drastic: a trigger phrase that will remind you where our TARDISes are. Both of the biodata modules are in my TARDIS, and your— _his_ —TARDIS is programmed to lock onto mine.”

“What is it?” He thought back to some of the strange images he had thought of right before Jenny hit Jack with the coat rack: oceanside, where a crystal tide washed against the shore. “Actually…” There was something else, something with drums… 

“Better to put it out of your mind.” The Doctor looked a little nervous; Harry felt similarly. “It’ll fade too, now that the danger has passed.”

Harry took a deep breath. “Nice to see you again, Doctor,” he offered.

She laughed. “I appreciate the effort to spare my feelings, but you don’t have to lie. Hopefully it’ll be a very long time before we see one another again.”

_Hopefully never,_ Harry thought to himself as he left the TARDIS, but knew that it was unlikely.

There would always be someone out there who needed the Doctor.

He sat down on the back steps and waited.

A little less than ten minutes later, a weary Jenny opened the door to the TARDIS.

Harry exhaled in relief and gave her a grin. “Welcome back.”

“What did I miss?” she asked, accepting his offer of a shoulder to lean on as they made their way back inside the house.

“You clubbed an American over the head with a coat rack.” He could remember that much, but the details of what happened next were beginning to blur into a reassuring haze. Something about the Doctor and promises and the knowledge that everything was going to be alright.

“You sure?” Jenny massaged her temples with her fingertips. “It feels a bit like I got knocked in the head myself.”

“It was very heroic,” he assured her, and gave Jenny a kiss on the cheek. “Let’s go to bed.”

“Oh, I’d quite like that,” she said sleepily. “You can tell me the rest in the morning.”

“I will.” Harry smiled and put an arm around her waist, holding her a little closer. “I promise.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next up: Jack gets an epilogue!
> 
> I usually have little soundtracks to the things I write, and the song for this particular fic was also the inspiration for the "failsafe" phrases for Jenny and Harry:  
> ["Everything Stays"](https://open.spotify.com/track/2jnOUdpaFKr9koG1Vtbj6v)


	5. Epilogue: New Start

_What now?_

Jack still didn’t know. Before he could talk to the Doctor’s companions, he needed to sit somewhere and clear his head while trying to process the events of the last few hours.

_No Doctor, and one of these days someone’s going to figure that out._

Maybe he _could_ try to take her place: take the Doctor up on her offer of a TARDIS and travel around the universe doing his best to at least give the impression that the Doctor was still active.

_And hope that she’ll change her mind eventually._

It was possible. As much as she claimed to want to rest, an ordinary life on Earth didn’t seem like something that could keep the Doctor content for very long.

So all Jack might need to do is buy some time. It wasn’t as though he didn’t have a lot of time to work with, after all.

_Where do I even start?_

As he turned a corner, he noticed something odd: an American-style diner in the middle of Sheffield. It looked fairly empty inside, which meant that he could probably sit around for a while before being asked to leave, so he shrugged and went in, hoping that the food wasn’t awful.

The place was so spotlessly clean that it was almost eerie. A pristine-looking jukebox was just to the right of the door, the linoleum floor squeaked faintly under the soles of his shoes, and the waitress behind the counter was in a crisp blue uniform that looked brand new.

The only other customer was a dark-haired girl in a black jacket, who was sitting alone in the furthest booth reading a book. She barely looked up as Jack entered.

“Table for one?” the waitress asked, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. “Or would you like to sit at the counter instead?”

“Counter’s fine,” Jack said, taking a seat on a stool and staring down at his distorted reflection in the formica countertop.

Behind him, the other customer stood and headed for the door. 

“Feeling a little homesick?” the waitress inquired, setting down her notepad and pen.

“Homesick?”

“You’re American, aren’t you?”

Jack blinked. “Oh. Yeah. Sort of.” The coincidental similarity between a Boeshane accent and an American accent never stopped being annoying. For a while, he had cobbled together a patchwork backstory about where in America he had grown up and what brought him to Cardiff or any of the other places he had lived on Earth, but he hadn’t spent much time on Earth recently so he had forgotten.

Fortunately for him, the waitress didn’t press him for more details. “Can I get you something? Coffee?”

“Sure.” Sitting at the counter might have been a mistake, he thought. The waitress was cute, but Jack wasn’t sure he was in the mood to talk right now.

There was a small click, and Jack turned to find the girl still inside the diner, sliding the lock into place. 

“We know you’re not from Earth,” she said.

Jack’s hand moved to his belt, which was when he remembered that “Harry Jones” had taken his gun.

“You’re not in danger,” the waitress assured him.

“Yet,” the girl interjected. 

_Oh great._ Jack probably had dozens, if not hundreds, of warrants for his arrest from various intergalactic law enforcement agencies, and in his desperation to find the Doctor he must have slipped up somehow. “How did you find me?” he asked wearily.

The waitress set a mug down on the counter. “Our scanners picked up repeated use of a vortex manipulator—”

The girl interrupted again: “Unlicensed.”

“—yes, unlicensed,” the waitress repeated impatiently. “Do you want to do the explanation, then?”

“I’m so glad you asked,” she said with a smirk, then addressed Jack. “We also noticed quite a lot of inquiries about the location of the galaxy’s most notorious meddler.”

Jack sighed. “The Doctor.”

“That clever boy,” the waitress said with a sad smile.

“She’s more of a clever girl these days,” Jack said. When the waitress’ expression lit up with interest, he hastened to add “or at least that’s what I’ve heard.”

“So you _were_ looking,” she said. “Did you find him—her, I mean?” The eagerness in her voice confirmed his suspicions: a former companion.

“No,” Jack said, hoping like hell that his con man skills would hold up well enough for this lie to work, “but knowing the Doctor, it’s only a matter of time till they charge in to save the day.”

That was when he realised that he had made his decision. “In the meantime,” he said, “it’s a big galaxy. Someone ought to keep an eye on it until the Doctor gets back.”

“You?” the girl asked sceptically; however, she exchanged a glance with the waitress that was strangely smug.

“Show him,” the waitress confirmed.

The girl pressed a button on the jukebox and the diner vanished.

They were now standing in an all-white room with a central console that looked an awful lot like—

“We’re in a TARDIS,” Jack said, dumbstruck.

The waitress held out her hands in a gesture of _tada!_ “Surprised?”

“How did you get a _TARDIS?”_

“The same way the Doctor did: stole one and ran.” She laughed briefly. “And before you ask, no, we’re not Time Lords. Just two very clever humans.”

Dark hair, big eyes, and an ego the size of the sun… Jack didn’t have a ‘type,’ per se, but he couldn’t help being reminded of a particularly iron-willed Welsh police officer.

“Captain Jack Harkness,” he said with a grin, “at your service.”

The girl made a quiet snort of derision, but the waitress just laughed again. “Clara Oswald. I take it we have a mutual friend?”

“We do indeed.” He turned to the girl. “What’s your name?”

“Me.”

“Yes, you,” Jack said, annoyed.

“Her name _is_ ‘Me,’” Clara explained quickly. “It’s easier if we skip the Abbott and Costello routine altogether.”

“Does this mean he’s coming with us?” Me asked wearily.

Clara nodded. “Do I get a say in this?” Jack asked, unsure if he was complaining or not.

“No, you don’t,” she said brightly. From her position near the TARDIS controls, Jack overheard Me mutter something about grey hair and flirting. “So the universe needs a substitute Doctor, then?” Clara asked.

“Something like that,” Jack said, trying not to think too hard about the salt and pepper strands of hair he kept finding on occasion. “Except…” 

The uneasy feeling from earlier resumed, intensified this time by memories of the friends he had lost. “Trying to do even half the things the Doctor does,” Jack explained, “is going to be extremely dangerous. Maybe even deadly.” He took a breath. “And I’ve watched too many people die.”

“Well, if it’ll ease your mind somewhat,” Me said as she and Clara exchanged a smirk, “we’re very hard to kill.”

Jack snorted. “You think _you’re_ hard to kill, you should see what happens when _I_ try—”

Me pointed at herself: “Mire medkit.”

Clara pointed at herself: “Extracted from a fixed event: the moment right before my death. We’re both basically immortal.”

Jack raised an eyebrow. “Fixed point in time?”

“More or less.” She shrugged. “I’ll go back to Gallifrey eventually, at which point they’ll pop me back into my timeline… but I figured, why not take the scenic route there?”

He couldn’t keep the grin off his face. 

_Three immortals with a TARDIS… oh, this could be fun._

“Before we head out,” Jack said as an idea began to form in his mind, “want to draw straws to decide who gets to be the Doctor this time?” He gestured at the waitress apron around Clara’s waist. “We _are_ in a diner, after all—you’ve got to have straws somewhere.”

“That’s a rubbish idea,” Me said. “I’ll go first.”

“I call second!” Clara chimed in, joining her at the controls. “Where are we heading, then?”

“Actually,” Jack said, “mind if I invite a few friends here in Sheffield to join us?”

 _This could be a_ _lot_ _of fun…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am in the odd situation where I don't really want to write "Jack, Clara, Me, and the Fam travel around pretending to be the Doctor" but I really want to _read_ it, so if anyone has fic recs (or wants to write one themselves), drop 'em in the comments.
> 
> I'm over on Tumblr as well (@hinerdsitscat) where I'm answering questions about the Two Can Play 'verse and take the occasional writing prompt, so follow me on that if you want!
> 
> Thanks for reading, everyone!


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